About MySQL, the database, the community, the ubiquity. Used to be at blogs.arno.fi/kajsql

Wednesday, 10 January 2007

MySQL 5.0.33 Community Server released

MySQL Community Server 5.0.33 has now been released. It is a pure bugfix release, delivered in a source-only form as a tarball for Unix and for Windows (we provide separate sources for these, as the build procedure differs) on dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#Source.

The release contains all bug fixes applied to MySQL Server 5.0 since the last Community release 5.0.27 in October 2006. The jump in numbers from .27 to .33 is to make it clear that .33 is up-to-date to the level of MySQL Enterprise Server 5.0.32, released about two weeks ago. We reserve the even version numbers for MySQL Enterprise, while odd version numbers indicate a Community Server Release. Both use the same "5.0" version part, as they share the same code base.

We are in the process of applying several patches provided by Community members, currently in our Contributions Pipeline. I expect several of these enhancements to be merged soon enough for the next MySQL Community Server to be released in February as 5.0.35. On the contrary, they will not appear in MySQL Enterprise Server 5.0.

The release notes for MySQL 5.0 have been split into separate sections of the MySQL 5.0 reference manual. This means that the documentation of the bug fixes of MySQL Enterprise Server 5.0.28, 5.0.30 and 5.0.32 have been copied into the release notes for MySQL Community Server 5.0.33.

The purpose of this MySQL Community Server release is twofold:

a) to deliver recent, fresh bug fixes to the MySQL communityb) to establish and test the practice of source tarball releases

As such, the bug fixes have been available in source form both as part of the BitKeeper source repository on mysql.bkbits.net and as MySQL Enterprise Server source releases on our ftp site ftp.mysql.com. However, we believe Linux distributions and Open Source fluent community users of MySQL are better served by a tagged MySQL Community Server release, which is available on our download server and has one single set of release notes.

Through establishing source tarball releases, we follow the tradition of many other FOSS projects. This provides more possibilities for Community Contributions in the means of binary builds.

We strive to release MySQL Enterprise Server on a monthly basis. While we don't have a specific schedule or policy for when MySQL Community Server is released in binary form, I expect the next Community release, 5.0.35, to be available as source and binaries for the same platforms as MySQL Enterprise Server and as the previous MySQL Community Server binary release 5.0.27. Until that point in time, the 5.0.27 binaries will be the ones listed on the normal MySQL 5.0 download pages at dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html.

Distributors of MySQL Community Server are welcome to contact Colin Charles and Lenz Grimmer, with proposals for process improvements (at firstname@mysql.com. Better still, subscribe to the packagers@lists.mysql.com archived and public mailing list at lists.mysql.com/packagers, which Colin and Lenz are monitoring. That list as our discussion forum for builders of MySQL releases, both already existing ones like the various distributors, and for new community contributors that want to step up and provide binaries, including Windows.

Please note that while the release has undergone testing, 5.0.33 is our first source only MySQL Community Server release, so I expect there to be some room for process improvement on our side.

Amongst the bug fixes, there is one that I want to highlight. It is listed as the innocent-looking bullet "InnoDB showed substandard performance with multiple queries running concurrently. (Bug#15815)". This is a fix to an issue especially surfacing on multiple-core processors. You testing in such environments is much appreciated. As a reference, you may want to read the Bugs database entry bugs.mysql.com/15815 as well as two articles from Peter Zaitsev -- one from a week ago, another from last September.

2 comments:

They tell me that my hosting this edition of Log Buffer; the weekly intersection of all things DBA and blog; has nothing to do with my birthday being on Sunday, but if it's all the same I'd like to think of it as a pre-emptive strike against my birth...

[...] After the introduction of the MySQL Enterprise Server, and the subsequent source-only release of Community Server 5.0.33, there was concern that MySQL would no longer provide official binary builds of the free Community Server. Fortunately, these concerns have now been addressed, but we will have to wait longer for binary releases. [...]